Hothead

The veteran verballers from Major Crime Squad North were set to bust an armed holdup gang, Wogs Without Work, so they dumped a "load-up" gun in Middle Harbour for two weeks to "let it age".

"I threw it in," the boss of the squad, then Senior Sergeant Dennis "Doodles" O'Toole, boasts on an undercover tape-recording. "I marked the spot on a certain rock."

Two weeks later, a suspect, P2, was taken to the location and photographed allegedly confessing and showing police where he had ditched the gun under the Roseville Bridge.

But P2 was both loaded up and verballed - the gun in fact came from an illegal stash kept by a crooked officer who is talking freely to the Police Integrity Commission.

Yesterday, this officer, N1, named eight detectives apart from himself - the entire armed holdup unit - who he said kept secret gun caches and used them to load up suspects.

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They include Inspector Kim Dowding, who is on sick leave, the undercover officer M5, who has turned informer, Sergeant Jim King, Senior Constable Dave Patison, Dave Minehan, Greig Vicary and F7, another informer. One name was suppressed.

Mr O'Toole, who retired as a chief inspector, had "oversighted" the load-ups and verbals "to lend weight to what happened".

"To be perfectly honest, I had the most weapons and did the most loading," N1 said. But everyone did it "as a team".

The illegal stashes were later cleaned out by Inspector Dowding, who admitted dumping the weapons in the Hawkesbury River near the Brooklyn Bridge with M5 in 1995, fearing investigators from the police royal commission, then sitting.

N1 said Wogs Without Work was a gang of "young thugs" dealing in drugs and menace in Chatswood who "decided they wanted to be gangsters and do armed robberies".

The armed holdup unit decided to load them up because "we believed that they could become a very dangerous team capable of murdering someone during a robbery".

"I'm not justifying anything. I'm quite happy I did it."

The day after a robbery they decided to act. "I believe it was my idea," N1 said. A gun was taken from his stash and dropped in Middle Harbour "to age it".

Two weeks later, on August 15, 1990, they busted the gang. N1 said N5 was "easy peasy, yes sir, I did it". B6 "signed up after being heavily spoken to ... I've been told he was assaulted". P2, who "we thought was going to be the easiest, turned out to be the hardest".

P2 was taken to the Roseville Bridge, photographed, verballed and charged - but two attempts by police divers failed to find the dumped gun. The "gun diver" was called in and found the weapon, which had "slipped under a rock".

Asked if load-ups were done frequently, N1 said: "Whenever necessary." If a suspect told them "to get stuffed, we had our weapons with us".

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Hothead

THE scene takes place at a now defunct bar in Surfers Paradise.In walk two off-duty police officers who have had one too many drinks.They get into a scuffle with the owner of the pub and head back to the station.A couple of hours later they return with sober, uniformed officers, bash the pub manager and nab him on trumped-up charges.Don't mind the free drinks and strippers, these coppers were intent on running the Gold Coast club district with an iron fist -- a law unto themselves.Liquor Licensing Minister Peter Lawlor was a lawyer at the time and heard story after story of corrupt police behaviour on the Gold Coast.He described it as 'the bad old days' when he talked to the Weekend Bulletin this week.Have your say on the feedback form below

In the 1980s, the clubs and pubs in Surfers Paradise were void of bikies.Pub owners and bouncers delivered their own forms of justice.And on the periphery was a group of police officers who took kick-backs when it suited them and turned a blind eye in return for drinks and other favours."They were a group of untouchables who would find any reason to enforce the law, so long as it suited them," said a source involved in the club industry at the time.The locations of the clubs are generally the same as they are today. They were different only in name and owners.In place of The Drink was The Penthouse, and The Bedroom previously operated under the notorious Tunnel nightclub banner.The Pink Elephant and Skyline stood on what is now the Chevron Renaissance building, while the Mouse Trap and Beach Road bar are now distant memories.Melbas is the only club that has stood the test of time.The '80s was a boom period for the Gold Coast and a lucrative market for entrepreneurs and shonks.A key figure in the rise of the Gold Coast skyline was the diminutive Eddie Kornhauser -- a Polish immigrant success story who forged close relationships with National Party MPs.Worth $350 million at the time of his death, Kornhauser featured prominently in the Fitzgerald inquiry into police and political corruption.His plans to transform the Ramada hotel into the state's first casino was blocked in State Parliament because of money laundering claims and his alleged association with Sydney underworld figure Abe Saffron.The prominent member of the city's famous 'white shoe brigade' was one of many savvy developers who flocked to the boom beachside address.Kornhauser was an associate of iconic Gold Coast developers Mike Gore and Brian Ray, who were also close supporters of then Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.All were implicated but never convicted in alleged government deals.English author Somerset Maugham once described millionaires' playground Monaco as a 'sunny place for shady people'.Just like the tiny European municipality, the Gold Coast has always been a focal centre for corrupt and criminal dealings. Spend a week in Surfers Paradise and you'll observe the bi-polar nature of our beloved tourist strip.Sun, surf and bikinis on the beach.Drugs, sex and bikies in the clubs.The Coast has been home to some of the country's toughest and most notorious criminal figures. With those criminals came cash -- truckloads of it.Development and tourism -- the industries that underpin the Gold Coast -- drove the criminal dollar.Ambition, opportunity and desperation will forever hover above the Sunshine State.In the 1990s, three crime lords called the Gold Coast home.Masaru Takumi, the Yamaguchi-Gumi Yakuza boss, owned penthouses here before he was shot in a Kobe coffee shop in 1997.Sydney crime lord Lennie McPherson and Australian Mafioso Bruno 'The Fox' Romeo also bought homes on the glitter strip.Ironically, Jack Herbert -- a key figure from the Fitzgerald inquiry -- decided to retire on the Gold Coast like many other crooks did.Herbert hit the headlines in the '80s when he turned supergrass for the Fitzgerald inquiry into corruption after he collected $3 million in bribes for corrupt cops.Looking back at the history of corruption in this state, there was no bigger figure, literally, than Oxenford patriarch Russ Hinze.The 'Minister for Everything', as he was dubbed by both his loyal mates and long list of enemies, was one of a kind.During the Fitzgerald inquiry, commissioner Tony Fitzgerald QC made notes about the laconic, laid back demeanour of Mr Hinze as the Minister received more than $1.5 million from individuals and companies involved in dealings with the government."In some instances, according to his evidence, the sources of the money were total strangers whose very existence has not been able to be verified," wrote Fitzgerald.The art of corruption in Queensland is to hide the source and cover the tracks. By using myriad companies and associates -- politicians, police and bikies have managed to avoid prying eyes.A common theme unearthed by Mr Fitzgerald was that 'proper documentation was rare; loans were granted without security; interest was another point of regular disinterest; few formal arrangements were made for loans to be repaid'.It is a common theme among crooks on the Gold Coast.If you launder the money well enough and avoid direct links, you'll have a better chance to kick back on the waterfront while the kids run around the mansion.But the good times don't last.The crooks of the 1980s in Brisbane were no different to the crooks that had gone before them.They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.The players ranged from Hector Hapeta, a New Zealand-born brothel owner who paid $1 million a year to corrupt police, to Sicilian-born Gerry Bellino, who owned illegal casinos and massage parlours.The Fitzgerald inquiry, which began in late July 1987, was a desperate, last-ditch attempt by senior National Party MPs to make it look like they were doing something.The inquiry was supposed to last six weeks.Instead it lasted 18 months. A total of 374 witnesses were heard and 212,000 pages of evidence taken.The Fitzgerald inquiry will most likely be known for ever as a definitive point in the history of Queensland.Exposed by Courier-Mail journalist Phil Dickie, who received information from whistleblower licensing officer Nigel Powell, the long line of corruption would eventually topple Premier Bjelke-Petersen.From 1987-89, Mr Fitzgerald worked through a web of secrecy and lies in his pursuit for the truth."We are quite aware of the desperate campaign which is being waged within the force to seek to maintain the closed ranks which provide a shelter for any culprits," he said.In September, 1987, Sir Terence Lewis was stood down as police commissioner after he was identified by retired Inspector Noel Dwyer as a 'bribes shark'.Mr Dwyer, who had been granted indemnity, went on to reveal the identity of the 'rat pack', which included Lewis, Tony Murphy (who retired to Robina) and Glen Hallahan.Lewis was eventually jailed in 1991 for 14 years and also stripped of his knighthood.The former Commissioner, who has always proclaimed his innocence, lost an appeal to the High Court and tried unsuccessfully to have his case re-tried in a civil court.Lewis, who rode a swift and meteoritic rise to the Commissioner's job with the assistance of Sir Joh, was heavily implicated in the corruption payment scheme known as 'The Joke' by multiple witnesses.The damning evidence against Lewis proved that even the mighty could fall.While the most recent claims of alleged improper action by Gold Coast police have been blamed on a minority of 'younger officers', it must be a concern for current Commissioner Bob Atkinson.This week he conceded that the Gold Coast had been under the anti-corruption microscope for almost a decade.The Commissioner must only hope that the Crime and Misconduct Commission does not unearth a more complex web of alleged corrupt behaviour.The Fitzgerald inquiry proved that it shouldn't matter what rank or role you hold, at the end of the day the law must be upheld at any cost.

Hothead

Alan Jones has an eerie ability to tap into community sentiment, or at least a significant part of it.

Back in October of last year, Alan Jones prefaced an interview with disgraced former New South Wales detective, Roger Rogerson on Radio 2GB: “I’m not one of those politically correct people and it mightn’t be politically correct to say it but if we had – you talk to people at the grass roots – if we had a few more of the man I’m about to speak then we’d have few, fewer problems in society confronting society at the moment.”

Jones launched Roger Rogerson’s book, “The Dark Side”, at the Iron Duke Hotel last October – an inner city Sydney pub that was a true den of iniquity in the days when Neddy Smith had the green light and shovelled out heroin from the back bar.

Jones lauded Rogerson, quoting a number of former NSW cops who bemoaned the present state of policing in New South Wales as being run by “uni cops”.

“A bit of old style policing wouldn’t do any harm,” Jones concluded.

The assembled group at the launch of Rogerson’s book was eclectic to say the least. Crown Prosecutor, Margaret Cuneen was in attendance. Former chief superintendant, Noel Morey was there too.

In the background, there was a smattering of old crooks. Almost anonymous in the throng was Karl Bonnette, now in his dotage but in the 1970s and 80s, Karl headed up the “Grandfather Mob” and was at least as influential in the Sydney underworld as were the more commonly known figures of Len McPherson and George Freeman.

Jones’ comments reflect a prevailing view that policing in Australia is best handled by coppers prepared to bend the rules to bring serious crims to justice.

From a distance it’s not hard to draw the same conclusion. But up close you begin to see just how damaging this can be.

In the course of the last couple of weeks, I’ve met two retired senior police officers – one from Victoria and one from New South Wales. Both are as honest as the day is long. It is impossible not to be impressed by these men and the courage they showed just to survive in their careers.

Both worked in a black knight environment - in New South Wales, there was a long history of entrenched and systemic corruption, and in Victoria, VicPol had not been subject to any form of independent review since the Beach Inquiry of 1975-76.

Too often we equate corrupt policing with taking bribes. While this is certainly part of the game, police corruption comes in other more subtle ways – officers who perjure themselves to obtain a conviction, knocking up false statements, verballing suspects et cetera – essentially the worst kind of perversion of justice.

Neither man would ever accept a bribe and both refused to verbal suspects. They would not lie under oath.

And in making this decision, they were effectively ostracised by their colleagues. While both men would go on to sit in the rarefied air of the senior ranks of their respective police forces, they spent their entire careers as outsiders.

One of these police officers tells the tale of receiving a telephone call at his home from a notorious gangster just prior to Christmas many years ago. “I just rang to wish you a Merry Christmas,” the crook said.

The policeman asked why the gangster was bothering to extend his Christmas wishes in such an unexpected manner. The gangster explained: “If I saw you in the street, I know you wouldn’t put a gun in my pocket and load me up. But if you saw me in the street with a gun in my pocket, you’d arrest me. And I can live with that.”

The gangster respected the police officer’s integrity, but in the eyes of many of his colleagues this police officer was a pariah.

Let’s be clear here, what we are talking about is not police in general but police detectives. In the era when these two men stood tall, it was at detective level that they encountered systemic corruption. These men would discover that there was a two-step process. They were invited to join in the game (or “the joke” as it was known at or before the time of the Wood Royal commission in to the New South Wales Police Force) but when they persistently declined these offers, the next phase would involve constant attempts to discredit them – to tarnish their reputations.

In a “what would you do?” moment, consider the moral question. For your entire working life you were alienated because you would not fall to the temptations offered by your peers. Virtually everyone around you was doing it. All you had to was accept the next offer going around and the whispering campaigns and the intimidation would stop.

Faced with those circumstances, I feel fairly sure that I would have weakened. That effectively is how corruption flourishes. Yet these men did not and ultimately they suffered for it.

Despite their rank, both men discovered that it was simply a matter of time before entrenched forces either directly corrupt or shielding corrupt elements, would turf them out.

In both cases, the men were of the highest quality – indeed they are the sort of men that a police force should be built around.

That they ended their careers traumatised by their experiences reflects badly on policing throughout the country. Most of all, it is we who have lost out by not having these people at the helm of our police services.

Pining for the bad old days of Roger Rogerson and his ilk running around without judicial oversight is an awful kind of nostalgia, not unlike a longing for the days when summary justice was meted out in America’s Wild West.

The simple facts are that police need to be on a higher moral plane than the crims they seek to catch.

Good cops should be valued in our police forces. The fact they are not is an indication that our police forces are not all they should or could be.

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Hothead

The thing I love most about reporting for 60 Minutes is the people you meet. All walks of life, in every part of the world, each with a story to tell. Sometimes those stories are uplifting, sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes shocking, but always they're very real.

The person in my story this week is very real. She's brutally honest about her life. And what a life it's been.

You're going to meet Kim Hollingsworth. Kim was a prostitute in Kings Cross in the late 80's and early 90's. And she wasn't just any working girl peddling her trade on the Golden Mile. Kim was in demand. She was a high class hooker who worked at the best brothels.

King Cross in Kim's time was an orgy of sex, drugs and strife. The flashy neon facades hid a labyrinth of sin. Dodgy deals, shady characters and bent cops. Whatever your vice, you'd get your fix along the strip.

Kim talks about these days as the best and the worst of her life. She was earning a fortune and living the high life. For every minute she spent on her back, she'd spend the same time shopping up a storm in the best department stores, travelling overseas, and renting fancy apartments.

But there was a price, because as you'll see, Kim is not what you expect of a woman who made a good living selling sex without love. She was the daughter of a country police Sergeant who came to Sydney to follow in her father's footsteps. That's right, Kim wanted to be a cop too but she ended up walking a very different beat. How that happened you'll discover in the story, and many of you will also have seen her dramatic turning point in the current "Underbelly" series on Channel 9.

Kim's dream did eventually come true but it didn't turn out the way she thought. After years in the brothels, she was accepted into the NSW Police Academy. It wasn't long before this trainee cop was working undercover helping expose police officers linked to the sex trade.

But after her evidence, Kim was kicked to the kerb and she began a lengthy legal battle to get her place back in the Police Academy. You might remember her from the news bulletins. She became quite an identity after turning up to court with her pet rat on her shoulder.

These days, she still has pet rats and lot of other animals she helps rescue. Kim lives in the bush now, a long way from Kings Cross. And she loves it that way. She openly admits she suffered a breakdown after fighting the police force, and eventually losing.

But she doesn't mind that "Underbelly" has opened up her life to all that scrutiny again. In fact, she finds some therapy in it, and is happy police of that era will face a bit of scrutiny again.

I spent an eye-opening few weeks on this story with Kim. She took me back to the old brothels, where she was met with open arms. And we spent a bit of time in the bush with her horses and rats. Those bloody rats — I hate them — have a look at my reaction in the story.